


Pursuit Curve

by Miershooptier



Series: Bodies in Orbit [3]
Category: Numb3rs (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Case Fic, F/M, M/M, Swearing, discussion of alcoholism, mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 16:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19931122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miershooptier/pseuds/Miershooptier
Summary: Charlie and Ian clash while working on the Crystal Hoyle case.  Set during/after S3E1 and S3E2, “Spree” and “Two Daughters.”I have cheated/tweaked some of the events in these episodes, but this is an AU so I’m allowed to do that.I don’t own any characters you recognize, I just like to push their faces together and make kissy noises.  I don’t own any dialogue you recognize.





	1. Chapter 1

“Charles, I require your assistance. Are you busy?” Larry Fleinhardt poked his head just inside the office door.

Charlie didn’t look up from his desk, only placed his hand atop a three-inch stack of paper as he continued making notes on one of them. “Larry, I’ve got grading – “

“Ah, so, not busy, then.” Larry said, pleased. “Come with me, I’m doing my ‘Faith in Physics’ lecture this week.”

Charlie groaned. “Larry, that thing is _heavy_.”

“Oh, I think the two of us can manage it. We’ve done it before. Come, Charles. To the storage closet.”

Despite his protest, Charlie found it unsurprisingly easy to abandon the stack of papers he was supposed to be grading and followed his best friend through the hallways until they came to the storage room. Charlie leaned against the wall, curious to see whether Larry had remembered to bring the key with him this time.

Larry paused at the door, patting his pockets. “Oh dear. Charles, I seem to have – “

“I’ve got mine, Larry, don’t worry about it.” Charlie fished his keys out of his pocket and opened the door. The physicist and the mathematician stood and regarded the contents of the room for a moment. “You know, Larry, my faith in physics would be restored if we used a cart to move this thing instead of our frail human bodies.”

Larry nodded, a contemplative look on his face. “I believe you’re right, Charles. And look! It seems as though someone has already purchased cinder blocks for us to use.”

“Yes, Larry, that was you. Last semester. You bought extra, remember?”

“Ah, well, how thoughtful of me.” Larry smiled.

Charlie laughed. “I’ll go see if I can borrow a cart from the engineering department.”

Even with the cart, it took a great deal of effort to maneuver the bed of nails through the hallways back to Charlie’s office, and they very nearly snagged some students who weren’t quick about moving out of the way.

“Okay, careful there, let me clear a space – “ Charlie made sure that Larry had the cart under control before rushing into the office and shoving chairs and piles of books out of the way. 

With a little more manhandling and not a small amount of cursing, Charlie and Larry were able to assemble the stand and move the bed of nails off the cart. Charlie gave the stand a few kicks, both to test its stability and as revenge for a pinched finger when they’d set the bed down.

“Well. Shall we test it?” Larry turned to Charlie, eyebrows raised. “There are plenty of cinder blocks.”

“We should absolutely test it,” Charlie said gravely, but his sudden grin belied his enthusiasm. “Do you have the sledgehammer?” 

Larry nodded. “It’s in my office. I’ll get it.”

“So, who’s hitting who?” Charlie asked, when Larry returned, sledgehammer in hand. “We could flip for it.”

“I prefer to be the one wielding the hammer. I find that it tends to make me more impressive in the eyes of my students. They’re usually less demanding about assignment extensions and grades when they see the hammer in my office.” Larry clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together.

Charlie rolled his eyes good-naturedly and placed a thick reference book on one end of the bed of nails to cushion his head, then rummaged around in his desk to find some mismatched protective eyewear. “Here, Larry. Safety first.”

The process of getting on and off the bed of nails was a tricky one, because it was only comfortable when one’s body weight was evenly distributed among as many of the nails as possible. Sitting down and leaning on the nails was painful. Charlie ended up sitting and then rolling into a prone position on his back, moving as quickly as he could.

Larry handed Charlie the small piece of plywood used to distribute the force from the impact to the cinder block, allowing the mathematician to situate it on his stomach before setting one of the blocks on top of it. Larry picked up the hammer and carefully lined up his strike, his arms trembling slightly from the weight.

Just as Larry was about to take a swing, two FBI agents appeared in the doorway of Charlie’s office. 

“Hey, Charlie, wha – _whoa whoa!”_ Special Agent Don Eppes rushed into the room, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Agent Ian Edgerton was eyeing Larry suspiciously, looking as though he were ready to rip the sledgehammer out of the physicist’s hands.

“Oh hey, yeah, this isn’t what it looks like,” Charlie said awkwardly, unable to move much without having any of the nail tips dig into him.

“Well, that’s a relief, because it looks like your friend here is about to perforate you,” Ian snapped.

“Actually, Professor Eppes here is protected by the most impenetrable armor of all: physics.” Larry said calmly.

“That’s right, you see, my weight is distributed amongst the spikes at an even 1.7 pounds each, and the kinetic energy of the hammer – “

“Charles, I think the drama of demonstration will be most instructive here,” Larry said.

“Wait, hold on, wait a minute – “ Don protested.

Charlie started to nod and winced as some nails dug into his shoulders. He gave his assent verbally instead. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

Larry swung the hammer, bringing it squarely down on the cinder block and smashing it to pieces. Charlie was breathless both from the blow and his amusement at the stunned looks on both Don and Ian’s faces. Don hurried to hold the plywood as Charlie shifted the board and cinder block shrapnel and started to roll off. “Hey, are you all right?”

Charlie couldn’t stop himself from laughing, coughing slightly on some cinder block dust. “I’m – I’m fine. I’m okay.”

Ian was not amused. “If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly does all that accomplish?” He reached out to touch the nails, frowning.

“The unwavering attention of my ‘Faith in Physics’ class,” Larry said, glancing from Ian to Charlie.

Charlie rushed to make an introduction. “Dr. Larry Fleinhardt, this is Agent Ian Edgerton.” 

Larry switched the sledgehammer to his other hand so that he was free to shake Ian’s. Don made his way around the bed of nails, looking Charlie over in spite of his assurances. “He’s got a couple of killers on the run, he thinks they might be headed to L.A.”

Removing his safety goggles, Charlie looked at Ian questioningly. He was keenly aware of the fact that Larry and Don were in the room, but nevertheless his heart was pounding, seeing Ian for the first time since Sibley. 

Ian seemed unaffected. That was fine. Charlie could follow that lead. Probably. As long as no one asked him a direct question, because he was a terrible liar.

“Or, already here,” Ian said, handing over a thick file. “I remember how that voodoo of yours helped to tighten the search grid the last time around.”

“Voodoo?” Larry inquired. 

“In spite of my _invaluable_ assistance on two instances, mind you, Agent Edgerton maintains some skepticism on the analytical approach to man-hunting,” Charlie said in a mock-offended tone, prompting a genuine smile from Ian.

“And yet, here you are,” Larry said, a knowing expression on his face.

“The instinct part of me says not to miss any bets,” Ian said, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Well, hey, let’s see if we can come up with something a little more substantive than instinct,” Charlie said, grinning as he spread a map over the spikes. “All right, these dots, representing…?”

“Black are confirmed sightings, red are robberies, yellow are killings,” Ian said, leaning over. 

“They’re hitting like every day or two, then they fall off the grid, then they show up a couple hundred miles away,” Don explained.

“I can tell you what they eat, what they drink, what car they’ll steal,” Ian said, a frustrated edge to his tone. “What I can’t do is tell you is what they’ll do next.”

“Right,” Don said with a nod. “We’ve got amateurs, you know, for us it’s easier to find pros.”

Charlie nodded thoughtfully and examined the map, noting the route the two spree killers took from Texas to the western states. He could see why Ian was guessing that they were coming to L.A., although…

“Did you forget to mark a point here?” Charlie asked, indicating the southwestern portion of Wyoming.

Ian narrowed his eyes at him and shook his head. “No.”

“No?” Charlie was surprised. 

“No, we had no sightings anywhere in Wyoming.”

“...Okay.”

“Did you see some sort of pattern here? A Langevin-like equation maybe?” Larry asked.

Charlie stood, feeling unable to explain. He waved his hands at the map. “I…just thought there should be a point there.”

“What, you got a hunch?” Don looked at Charlie hopefully.

Charlie shook his head, pacing to the other side of his office. “I don’t have hunches, when I hypothesize, that’s really what it is, it’s an intuitive synthesis of established mathematical principles and theorems.”

Ian tilted his head, smirking. “Knowledge plus a guess, right? Where I come from, that’s a hunch.”

Only just stopping himself from rolling his eyes, Charlie gave him a pained look instead. “I suppose. Look, I’m happy to go over the data here, see what I might be able to turn up for you.”

Don grinned and clapped him on the back. “Thanks, buddy, we appreciate it. Call me when you have something.”

“Sure,” Charlie smiled distractedly as Don headed towards the door, his eyes shifting to Ian. The sniper gave him a knowing grin and a wink before following Charlie’s brother out of the office.


	2. Chapter 2

“Dammit!” Charlie cursed as his phone rang. He was juggling a stack of graded papers, a textbook, the case file, his laptop bag, and his office keys, and he’d either have to grow an extra hand or drop something to get to his cell phone. He opted for the keys.

“Hello?” He answered tersely.

“Hey, buddy,” came Don’s voice. “This a bad time?”

Charlie sighed. “No, just had my hands full with…stuff. What do you need?”

Don winced at the other end of the line. He promised himself for the hundredth time that he would start making more of an effort to call Charlie about things other than work, but right now he needed to update him on the case. “I just wanted to let you know that you were right about that missing dot in Wyoming. We found a robbery that wasn’t initially tied to the spree killers because they didn’t sign it the way they did the others – they made a call from that location to someone in L.A. and apparently didn’t want to draw attention to the fact.”

“Really?” Charlie was interested. “Can you get me an updated version of that map, as well as the date and time of that new robbery? I think that Amita could help us with some modeling that might provide some insight.”

“Sure thing, Charlie, you’ll have it soon.” Don cleared his throat. “So…Amita. She’s going to be around to help?”

“Um, yeah,” Charlie said, ducking his head. “She’s accepted the offer from CalSci, so, um, she’s going to stay.”

“All right!” Don cheered. “That’s great news, Chuck.”

“Don’t call me Chuck,” Charlie said automatically, trying to quell the weird mix of emotion swirling around in his gut at the contrast between Don’s apparent enthusiasm and his own, which seemed like it was slowly being drowned in a tide of doubt and anxiety. “Uh, if I can start working with Amita on this we should have something for you maybe tomorrow?”

“Whatever you can do, Charlie, I’d appreciate it,” Don said. “Talk to you soon.”

“Bye, Don.” Charlie sighed and hung up the phone, then looked around the floor for his keys.

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“You’ve been locked in a pursuit curve with the killers,” Charlie explained, indicating the two paths modeled on the screen behind him. Amita hit the key on her laptop to show the movement of the red and blue lines, the progression of dots from Texas to California. Don, Megan, and Ian were sitting in the war room, their attention fixed on the three CalSci professors and their briefing.

“Charlie, can the curve tell us where they’re going to turn up next?” asked Megan, her eyes intent.

Larry jumped in to answer her – very eagerly, Charlie noted. “Well, Laplace said that if he knew the position of every particle in the universe, he could predict every future event.”

“Sure,” Don nodded. “I mean, the same principles apply to human behavior.”

Charlie grinned at his brother, delighted. It had taken a few cases to do it, but he was pleased with the way Don wasn’t hiding the way he picked up mathematical principles anymore. 

“Megan, we will need to see all your profiling data,” Larry said.

“And Ian,” Charlie made his way around the table to sit down in one of the chairs. “We’re going to need more data on your tracking methodology.”

Ian smirked and leaned back in his chair. “Whatever helps us make headway on this hunt, Professor.”

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“Hey, Charlie, we’ve got some new information for you,” Don said, not bothering to knock as he walked into Charlie’s office. 

“New information or new data? Because I’ve been working on this pursuit curve analysis…” Charlie mumbled, not looking away from his blackboard.

“Both, I guess?” Don looked at Ian and shrugged. “We’ve got information on a potential target that Hoyle might be after. His name is Billy Rivers, he’s a guy she hooked up with after having an affair with the car dealer guy that she killed two nights ago.”

“Reeves thinks that Hoyle has come back to L.A. to ‘fix’ her mistakes from fifteen years ago, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that this guy is one of them,” Ian added. Charlie turned at the sound of the sniper’s voice, finally breaking out of his zone.

“We’ve been through his known associates, his favorite hangouts…” Don paced Charlie’s office. “The guy is hiding.”

“And Hoyle and Winters are out there looking for him,” Ian said grimly.

“What you think about, you know, adjusting the pursuit curve for that?” Don suggested.

“Um,” Charlie was thoughtful. “For Crystal chasing Rivers…”

“If we can find him fast, he’d be good bait.” Ian leaned on the back of one of Charlie’s office chairs.

Charlie’s brow was furrowed in thought, glancing from his blackboards to the FBI agents. “You know, I’ve been running expressions assuming a dog chasing a cat. But it’s actually a dog chasing a cat chasing a mouse.”

“I thought it was an airplane?” Ian said, puzzled.

“Oh no!” Charlie smiled slightly, waving his hands as if erasing the airplane analogy. “Cats and dogs work better now. The cat has two sets of points affecting her now: the way she adjusts her angle of pursuit to overtake the mouse, and the strategy she employs to evade the dog. Obviously the dog’s optimal strategy is to head for the mouse and let the cat come to him. You guys are the dog now. Congratulations, because that’s an upgrade from the airplane example. You already have your bait.”

“We don’t even have to _know_ his location,” Don said excitedly. “Just where Hoyle’s going to be looking for him!”

“Exactly!” Charlie grinned, turning to push the blackboard up to reveal a blank one underneath. “So if we adjust and weight values for Rivers’ previous known locations, old addresses, and sites of arrest and such, eliminating places that we know Hoyle has already searched, while using them to infer her decision-making…” Charlie grabbed a piece of chalk and started to write.

“Voodoo,” Ian concluded smugly.

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Pausing to swipe tiredly at his eyes, Charlie took a step back to evaluate his work. His weighted analysis of the different locations within L.A. that had connections to Billy Rivers was taking longer than he thought, and the guilty feeling that had settled in his stomach after Amita had stopped by to remind him of their dinner plans hadn’t faded. 

He turned to take another look at Megan’s profile on Crystal Hoyle, just to make sure that he was assigning the appropriate weight to the variables, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Ian standing just two feet away holding a paper bag.

“Holy shit! I didn’t hear you come in. You’re really quiet.” Charlie blurted out, embarrassed.

Ian just smirked at him, taking in the effect that the long day had on the mathematician’s appearance. Gone was the sport coat, and the sleeves of Charlie’s white button-up shirt were rolled up to his elbows. He was still wearing the sweater vest, though. A sweater vest. _In L.A._ And there was a streak of chalk dust in his hair and more smears of chalk on his jeans, where Charlie had absently wiped his hands while working.

The sniper was disturbed by how appealing the overall look was. On his way to head off Crystal Hoyle and Buck Winters in L.A., he’d been fully focused on the hunt – ready to reach out to see if Charlie could lend a hand with his voodoo, but not dwelling on the end of the McHugh hunt in Sibley. But those memories were starting to come back more strongly now, during the lull he’d had waiting for the results of Charlie’s analysis.

He cleared his throat and held up the paper bag. “I assumed you hadn’t eaten yet, Professor. You seemed pretty focused when we switched from fighter planes to cats and dogs earlier.”

Charlie blushed. He hadn’t even noticed Don and Ian leaving the office before – in fact, he’d been so absorbed in his work that he hadn’t noticed anything until Amita had come to collect him for their doomed dinner date. As if they’d had the chance to have any other kind of dinner date, he thought moodily. “Uh, no, I haven’t eaten, I wanted to see where I could get with this…”

Ian grinned. “I figured. Take a break, Charlie. The math will keep for ten minutes.”

The bag contained a pastrami on rye, and Charlie’s mouth started to water as soon as he got a whiff of the meat and fresh bread. Ian must have gotten this from the deli just down the street from CalSci, one of Charlie’s favorite places to grab a bite to eat when he didn’t bring his own food to campus. He wanted to wolf it down, but was suddenly grateful for the excuse not to talk, now that the conversation could possibly extend to more than just the case and the math. He took his time with the sandwich.

Intending to give Charlie some space to eat, Ian wandered over to the blackboard behind Charlie’s desk and examined the work it contained. He could see some notations he could guess the meaning of and a few full words, but the rest of it was totally incomprehensible. 

There was one thing that did catch his attention, however. Up in one of the top corners of the blackboard was a drawing of a bird. The same drawing he’d slipped into Charlie’s notebook on a whim, the day that the Eppes brothers had been shadowing him while tracking McHugh through the hills of Sibley. Charlie had kept it.

_Huh._

“Thanks for the sandwich,” Charlie said, using a napkin to dust some crumbs off his hands and the papers on his desk. “What do I owe you for it?”

“Courtesy of an FBI expense report, Professor. Don’t worry about it.” Ian tore his gaze away from the drawing. “Want to bring me up to speed on your analysis?”

Charlie nodded, relieved. “Absolutely.” He stood, brushing past Ian to stand in front of the board. He raised his hand to point at a set of numbers at the top of the board. “I’ve been able to narrow down the list you gave me to these locations here. Based on the value matrix I created, these scored in the high probability threshold, although I haven’t yet gotten through everything…”

Ian was looking at Charlie’s ass in those chalk-covered jeans, not the numbers. He knew that Charlie would get to the point soon, and until that time he was going to enjoy the view. Or maybe go a little more hands-on.

“…And this top-scoring location, let’s see, I coded them so that I could efficiently use the space but I seem to have lost the key I made,” Charlie glanced around, intending to rummage through the papers on his desk. Ian had other ideas, leaning down to catch Charlie’s lips in a kiss.

Charlie gave a muffled yelp as Ian backed him up against the blackboard, automatically curling his hands around Ian’s hips. The sniper bracketed him in place with his arms, his lips firm but not too demanding, waiting for Charlie to respond in kind. After some hesitation, Charlie did, giving in to the heat he was feeling from his whole-body blush. He swiped his tongue against Ian’s lips and Ian obliged, deepening the kiss and shifting so that he could grip a handful of Charlie’s hair. Charlie moaned and pressed his hips forward, trying to get as much contact with Ian’s body as he could.

When Ian used his body weight to more effectively pin Charlie against the board, however, he was met with a squeak of protest. He backed off immediately. “All right, Professor?”

“Um, yes, fine,” Charlie panted. “It’s just…you’re going to erase all the work I did if we keep this up.”

Ian’s eyebrows shot up, and then he laughed. “Sorry. Got a little carried away.”

“1447 Vanalden,” Charlie gasped.

“What?” Ian was genuinely confused.

Charlie scrunched his face up, trying to figure out if he was feeling relieved or extremely disappointed. “I just remembered the corresponding address for that top location. 1447 Vanalden, in Reseda. Billy Rivers lived there briefly in the nineties, according to the information you and Don gave me. It’s a high probability that Hoyle will look for him there.”

Ian looked him intently. “You’re sure?”

Giving a weak chuckle, Charlie waved a hand at the board behind him. “There’s the math.”

“Okay, thanks. I’m going to call this in. I’ll see you around, Professor.” Ian strode out of the office, his call to Don already ringing.

Charlie shifted away from the blackboard to lean against the wall, trying to catch his breath, his jeans uncomfortably tight. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, thumping it against the wall as he remembered the disappointed look on Amita’s face when she realized that he’d forgotten all about her.

“Asshole,” he whispered, and he wasn’t sure if he was referring to Ian or to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

“Nah, she stayed,” Don said from his lazy slouch in one of the break room chairs. “She wants the same things you want.”

Charlie’s hands flexed and rubbed together nervously. “And what if…what if I don’t want those things, though?”

Don frowned. Charlie swallowed, dropping his eyes.

“Hey, look, I don’t know if relationships are ever exactly…what we want,” Don muttered, sitting up in the chair and wincing at the twinge in his back. “I mean, me and Robin…”

“You like her,” Charlie said, with a small smile.

“Yeah, I like her, I just…” Don paused, not sure what to say. “I don’t know. Look,” he said briskly, getting to his feet. “You said you wanted a second chance and now you got it. You know the only thing that’ll screw that up is – “

“Me,” Charlie said glumly.

“Yeah, exactly,” Don said, on his way back to the bullpen. 

Charlie sighed, running a distracted hand through his hair. _I’m gonna screw this up._

“So, Professor, where do we go from here?”

 _What the fuck._ Charlie twisted around to see Ian standing in the doorway of the break room. _Is he a mind reader?_ Charlie took a moment to check himself – mind-reading wasn’t a thing, but it was unsettling how closely Ian’s question had mirrored his own thoughts.

“What? Like…you and me?”

Ian’s eyes nearly bugged out of his face. “What?! No, I mean with Hoyle! Are we still with cats and dogs or are we on to, I don’t know, soap bubbles and trees?”

“Oh.” Charlie felt his face heating and tried to school his expression. This was professional. He could be professional. “Well, with Winters in custody I’m sure you know that the entire dynamic of this pursuit has changed. Where’s Megan? It would be helpful if she could shed some light on Hoyle’s probable state of mind right now, because the mouse is still out there but the cat is missing her partner in crime, and by now she knows it.”

“It’s three-thirty in the morning, Charlie, Reeves went home after we put Winters in holding. I think right now it’s up to us night owls.” Ian gave no sign that he had even considered trying to get any sleep.

“All the stuff is in the war room.” Charlie heaved up out of the chair to his feet. “Let’s go take a look.”

The two of them spent the next hour reviewing maps and addresses, and Charlie was glad to lose himself in the knotty problem of the case instead of wallowing in his thoughts about relationships. He kept a respectable distance from Ian, because while he figured that Ian was again deep in the hunt – and this time in the FBI office – he’d been taken by surprise just hours before.

“Hey,” Don barked from the doorway. “Charlie, I’m going to the house to get a shower and a change of clothes, and you’re coming with me. We both need a break, now let’s get going.”

“Don, I – “ 

“Now, Charlie. We’re not getting anything more done tonight because tonight is already tomorrow.”

“Okay, okay,” Charlie yawned. “I’m coming.”

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It was hard for Charlie to keep his attention on the video footage that Don, Colby and Ian were reviewing, when he had a clear view of Larry out in the bullpen talking with David. Charlie could see how upset the physicist was, knew how shocked he’d been at the news that Megan had been kidnapped by a spree killer right after their breakfast date. But the choice in energy expenditure was between someone whose physical wellbeing was in danger, and someone whose emotional wellbeing was in danger. So Charlie deliberately turned his gaze back to the footage, willing himself to put his concern for Larry on the backburner.

“She didn’t wait,” Colby said, pointing. “She followed.”

“All right, look, so Hoyle wakes up and she finds Buck missing,” Don said, talking through the timeline.

“They’ve already killed one old boyfriend, Pierce Brenner,” Ian contributed.

“And he’s out looking for this guy Rivers, who’s boyfriend number two,” Don continued.

Colby nodded. “She must have showed up right at the time we locked up Buck – “

“And followed us straight back here.” Ian finished, his whole demeanor that of suppressed rage at the thought of his prey sitting right outside the building without him even knowing it.

“She’s got some guts, parking right out there,” Don said, shaking his head.

“What kind of person takes that kind of risk?” Charlie asked softly.

“The scariest kind,” Ian said. “Too crazy to care, smart enough not to get caught.”

“Is Winters out of holding yet?” Don’s lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line.

“Yeah, they’re bringing him up now. I’ll talk to him,” Ian said, his face hard.

“Don – “ Colby started, worried.

“I can get information out of him, Granger, and in case you forgot, we are on the clock,” Ian snapped.

Don hesitated, rubbing his jaw.

“I could – “ Charlie swallowed as all three agents turned to look at him. “I mean, I’ll keep working on it, maybe it won’t matter if Winters refuses to say anything.”

“Charlie, this isn’t about the math,” Don said, dismissively. He turned to Ian. “I’ll talk to him first, give him a chance to cooperate. If that doesn’t work, you can go in.”

Ian nodded sharply and left the room. Don followed him at a slightly slower pace, not meeting Charlie’s eyes on his way out.

Colby watched them leave, also avoiding Charlie’s gaze. Instead he tried to change the subject. “So, Megan and Fleinhardt, huh? I can’t believe I was the last to know.”

“He cares about her,” Charlie said, uncomfortable with Colby’s incredulous tone. He knew how most people thought about Larry, and that the perception was that Megan was way out of Larry’s league because she was tall and strong and beautiful, and he was short and strange and too smart for other people’s comfort. Charlie could relate to that.

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Don was nearing the breaking point, Charlie could tell. He knew his brother well enough not to be too hurt when he ranted back and said he didn’t care about the math – though the specific mention of algorithms did sting a little. Charlie didn’t mean to lecture, it’s just that math was the best way Charlie knew to explain anything.

So he tried. He talked about trawlers and speedboats, and drew the spiral search pattern within the dragnet – the “punchline,” as Colby called it. And Don was desperate enough to take it, anything that would allow him to feel like he was doing something active to help Megan instead of waiting around for a hostage exchange that would never happen. 

And then Charlie waited. He waited in the war room with Larry, in silence, and hoped that something good would happen, because while he was worried about Megan he’d never seen Larry like this, and he didn’t want to think about how his best friend might change if Megan died.

Charlie’s cell phone started to ring. “Hello?”

“Charlie, it’s David. We found Megan, she’s going to be okay. We’re at Good Samaritan Hospital right now.”

“She’s – you found her?! What happened? Did you get Hoyle?” Charlie tightened his grip on the phone.

“No, we didn’t. Colby and I heard a report of shots fired at a motel on the police scanner – look, it’s a long story and it involves grenades. Megan was badly cut, she lost a lot of blood but the doctors say that she’s going to be fine. I just wanted to let you know. You and Larry can come down and visit if you want, she’s in room 413.”

“Okay…okay. We’ll be right there. Thanks, David.” Charlie hung up the phone, turning to Larry.

“Charles?” Larry’s voice was shaking.

Charlie put an arm around him. “She’s going to be fine, Larry. Let’s go see her.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Don said that you’re naming a variation after me,” Megan said, trying to keep her face serious. The smile lines around her eyes gave her away. She was still holding the bouquet of white flowers that Larry had given her, and didn’t look like she was going to be ready to put it down any time soon. Larry was sitting in the chair next to the bed, hands clasped together.

Charlie laughed. “I…I didn’t know that it would work. It might not have worked.” It had just been a thought, a kind of ‘Hail Mary’ idea that he’d thrown out in response to Don’s comment about spitting in the ocean.

“Hey.” Megan reached out and squeezed Charlie’s hand, letting the flowers rest in her lap. “It did work, and I’m okay. Thank you, Charlie.”

“I didn’t really do anything, it was David, Colby, Ian and Don who got you out.” 

Megan leaned back and sighed. “I just wish that it hadn’t come down to a choice between getting me here and taking Crystal in.”

“Charles, may I speak to you outside for a moment?” Larry asked suddenly.

“Sure,” Charlie said, surprised. He nodded at Megan, following Larry out into the hallway.

Larry paced a little, pressing his hands together and tapping his chin in thought. Charlie waited for him to speak, starting to become concerned. “Larry?”

“Charles, I have noticed…I am aware of a certain fascination that you seem to have with Agent Edgerton.”

Charlie’s mouth fell open. “Larry, I –“

Larry held up a hand. “Just an observation – what you’ve said about him, and the way you interact with him. I’ve known you for a long time, Charles, but I doubt anyone else would suspect. I just wanted to caution you.”

Swallowing hard, Charlie looked at the floor. He didn’t know what to say – he wasn’t exactly out, only to a few people. Most of those few people were previous sexual partners, and Ian was one of them. 

“I spoke with David when we arrived. I wanted to apologize for some things I had said to him earlier, and he told me what happened when Megan was rescued. Agent Edgerton wanted to take their only vehicle to go after the woman who kidnapped Megan, while Megan was wounded and possibly dying, and time was of the essence.” Larry paused. “It speaks to a callousness of character that I believe…well, I believe it is unworthy of you, Charles. I think that your generous and caring nature would be more compatible with someone who shared those qualities.” Larry’s unspoken opinion that Amita was that someone nevertheless rang through loud and clear to Charlie.

“I..um…” Charlie cleared his throat, still not looking at Larry. “I think I have to go. Tell Megan goodbye for me. I’ll see you later.”

“Charles!” Larry called out to him, but Charlie had already disappeared around the corner.

01101110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110011 0001010

Amita was concerned. Charlie was sitting in his office chair, looking lost in thought. But not lost in his usual way. This was different. 

She wondered if it had anything to do with the conversation they’d had about Charlie walking on eggshells around her ever since she’d told him she was accepting the offer from CalSci. She wanted to try to have a relationship with Charlie, she really did. But she wanted it to be with the real Charlie, not the Charlie that held himself at a distance and seemed afraid to put a foot wrong.

“Hey,” she said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Charlie said automatically. Then he sighed, and turned to look up at her. “No, that’s not true. It’s not fine.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Amita sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

“Have you ever…have you ever had something work better in practice than it did on paper?” Charlie waved a hand. “Like you’ve done the math, the math is telling you not to expect extraordinary results, but then you apply it and you get extraordinary results anyway?”

“Sure,” Amita shrugged. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the math is incorrect, it means that it’s incomplete. You’re overlooking an additional variable, or maybe more than one variable.”

Charlie nodded thoughtfully. “It’s like trying to identify how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

“Is this about your Cognitive Emergence work?” 

“No, this isn’t about theory, it’s about application.” Charlie looked at her. “Amita, I – “

He was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He shot her an apologetic look before answering it. “Hello?”

“Charles, it’s me.” 

“Larry?” Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. “You have a cell phone? What happened to ‘electronic leashes’?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charles, of course I don’t have a cell phone. I’m using Megan’s.”

“Oh. Okay. Um, what’s up?”

“First of all, I would like to apologize if I overstepped earlier –“

Charlie cut him off. “Larry, don’t worry about it. It’s not important. What do you need?”

“Ah, yes. Megan and I were discussing the case from a regression perspective, working from the criminal’s end goal to attempt to predict her immediate movements, and we need your assistance to identify a certain social security number. It’s important, Charles, a young girl’s safety depends on it.”

“Sure, Larry, anything you need. I’ve got Amita here, I think between the two of us we can apply some exclusion filters to at least narrow it down. I can stop by the hospital to get the necessary information from Megan.” Charlie glanced at Amita, who was already pulling her laptop out of her bag.

“That will prove difficult, as Megan and I are no longer at the hospital. In spite of my misgivings she has insisted upon leaving, and we are on our way to CalSci.”

“Oh.” Charlie blinked. “Then I guess I’ll see you soon.” He hung up.

“We’re finding social security numbers?” Amita asked, her eyes bright. Charlie couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re amazing, do you know that?” Charlie got up from behind the desk. “Come sit over here, it’ll be much more comfortable for you.”

As Amita settled into the office chair, she felt a light kiss brush her hair.

“Thanks,” Charlie whispered.


	5. Chapter 5

Ian’s phone was ringing. Of course it was ringing, of course he couldn’t get a single night of peace, not even after a hunt like this. He grunted and rolled over on the bed, flicking the phone open without looking at the number. “Edgerton.”

“Hey, Ian.”

Ian squinted. “Charlie? How did you get my number?”

“I stole Don’s phone,” Charlie answered matter-of-factly. “Which room are you in?”

“What?”

Ian heard an impatient sigh on the other end of the line. “Which room are you in?” Charlie repeated himself.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I’m at the front office and they don’t give out information on guests, obviously. Which room are you in?”

“How did you know where I was staying?” Ian demanded, starting to get angry. 

“Would you believe me if I said I employed your tracking methodology?”

Ian huffed. “No.”

“Well, you’re right, there was a copy of your expense report on Don’s desk.”

Ian sighed. “I’m in 201.”

Charlie made a noise of understanding. “Close to the stairs, away from the elevators. I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Charlie – “ Ian started, but the call had already ended.

A couple minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Ian put his eye to peephole. Charlie was standing right outside the door, impatiently bouncing on his heels. Ian turned the bolt, removed the security chain, and yanked the door open.

“Charlie,” he growled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Charlie pushed past him into the room, not bothering to wait and see if Ian would step aside. “I needed to know something.” He took in the disheveled state of the bed and the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the nightstand.

“Now is not a good time.” Ian held the door open, jerking his head toward the hallway.

“So I should wait until…when? When you’re back in L.A. on another manhunt?”

Ian didn’t really have an answer for that. He glared at Charlie and pushed the door closed. Charlie just stood there, looking unperturbed by Ian’s mood.

“What do you want to know?” Ian figured the sooner he satisfied Charlie’s curiosity, the sooner he could get the mathematician to leave.

“Don came over to the house after the standoff with Hoyle,” Charlie said. “He said it ended badly.”

“It was never going to end well, Professor. Hoyle was going to make sure of that. She always intended to go down in flames.” Ian retrieved the bottle of Jack from the nightstand, uncapped it and took another swig.

“Did Megan’s profile tell you that?”

Ian snorted. “No, years of experience apprehending dangerous killers told me that.”

Charlie nodded, his eyes sweeping the room again before coming back to meet Ian’s. “Would you really have left her? If it meant that you could get Hoyle?”

Now Ian really was angry. “What is this, Charlie? One fuck and now you think you get to question the way I do my job?”

Charlie faltered. “It – it just didn’t seem to track with what I know of you.”

“Yeah?” Ian laughed mirthlessly. “You think you know me? You don’t know me.”

“Call it…knowledge plus a guess.” Charlie met his gaze. 

“Do you know how many bodies those two left in their wake? Do you? I followed them across seven states, I saw eleven people lying in pools of their own blood and five people burned to a crisp in a meth lab. One of those bodies was after the motel, and she nearly ripped a kid away from the only family she’s ever known. I had to get her.” Ian turned away and took another drink. “I had to get her.”

“But you didn’t –“

“No, because your brother got there first!” Ian shouted.

“What?” Charlie asked, startled. 

“He took my shot. Hoyle was headed toward our road block, she’d pulled the pin from a grenade and she was going to ram us. I had my shot lined up, I was ready to take it. Don took the shot before I could.”

“Don killed her?” Charlie was still trying to catch up. “He didn’t tell me that.”

Ian sat down heavily on the bed. “It shouldn’t matter, it would have ended the same way.”

Charlie tentatively sat down next to him. “Yes, but…with everything that Don went through on this case, everything that he did… If there is a ‘right’ reason for killing someone…I’m not sure that’s why he did it.”

Ian looked at the mathematician, who was rubbing his face with both hands. “Don said something earlier, he said the hunt changed him. Not just this one, but when he worked in Fugitive Recovery.”

Charlie nodded. “I don’t know much about his time in New Mexico. The two of us weren’t really talking at the time. But our parents were worried for him. He wasn’t really talking to them, either, which was unusual.”

“Yeah, well,” Ian shifted the bottle from one hand to the other. “I’ll tell you what I told him, the hunt didn’t change me, it chose me.” He felt Charlie’s eyes on him, his gaze intense. Then Charlie took the bottle out of his hand.

“Hey!” Ian made a grab for it. Charlie pushed his hand down, taking the opportunity to tip back some of the liquor. 

“There,” Charlie rasped. He’d never liked whiskey, and he certainly never liked drinking it neat, let alone from the bottle. “Now you’re not drinking alone.”

Ian grunted, regaining control of the bottle again. “There’s not even any reason for you to be here, Professor. That night in Sibley, that was just supposed to be one night –“

“Then what was that in my office?” Charlie asked. “That was just a friendly kiss between colleagues, I guess? With tongue, but like in a professional way?”

Ian winced, but didn’t say anything.

“This was a tough case,” Charlie mused. “Seems like it messed everyone up – Don, Megan –“

“Reeves let Hoyle get inside her head,” Ian muttered. “Related to her too much.”

“You didn’t, though.”

“I can’t relate to a middle-class white girl who ran away from home because her parents were strict,” Ian scoffed. “Hoyle grew up with everything and she gave it up – twice. Round two of her teenage rebellion ended in a killing spree, and I don’t care what happened to her when she was here in the nineties. I’ve pulled people out of worse circumstances than that, hell, I’ve dragged _myself_ out of –“ He cut himself off, looking away. “And none of those people ever decided they had the right to commit murder afterwards. Hoyle was something else. Her parents gave her everything when she was fifteen, they did it again when they helped her rebuild her life and become a teacher. And then what does she do? She rapes a student and takes him on a murder tour of the western United States.” Ian raised the bottle to his lips.

“What did you drag yourself out of?” Charlie asked, sensing that this was a dangerous topic.

“This is not the part where I tell you a sob story, Professor,” Ian said gruffly.

“No.” Charlie took the bottle again, downing a little more whiskey. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“I have a better idea,” Ian said, and pushed Charlie down on the bed, covering his mouth in a kiss. Charlie dropped the bottle in surprise, and as he returned the kiss he wondered distractedly if the hotel would charge Ian’s expense report for a stain on the carpet, or if Ian would have to pay for it himself.

Ian urged Charlie further up the bed, half pushing, half coaxing, his normally controlled movements a little rough and uncoordinated. Once situated, the sniper switched his attention to Charlie’s neck, gripping his hair and tilting his head to the side for better access.

“Ian!” Charlie gasped, patting Ian’s back awkwardly from where his arm was partially pinned underneath the agent’s body. “Hey!”

Ian stopped. “What?”

“I think you’re drunk, Ian.”

Ian grimaced. “Yeah, probably.” He sighed and laid his head on Charlie’s chest, closing his eyes.

They lay together quietly for a few minutes. Ian showed no intention of moving, so Charlie started to run his fingers through his hair – hesitantly at first, but then more regularly when Ian didn’t object. 

“I’m not an alcoholic.”

Charlie blinked, looking up at the ceiling. “I didn’t think you were. I suspect it would be difficult to maintain your skill as a sniper while managing an addiction.”

Ian snorted softly. “Both of my parents were.”

“That must have been hard,” Charlie ventured, trying to imagine what it would have been like. He knew that his childhood, while unusual, had been a pretty good one. 

“My mom got sober eventually. My dad never did. He took off when I was in high school and we never saw him again. I never tried to look him up. He’s probably dead.” Ian paused. “Good riddance.”

Charlie’s hand stilled for a moment, then continued petting.

“My sister and I had to fend for ourselves a lot of the time. Even after Mom got sober, even after my loser dad left, money was tight, and there were barely any jobs where we grew up. So I stole. I stole from people hardly better off than we were. I’ve got a juvenile record. I barely finished high school. The only reason I went to college is because I joined the military. So yeah, I dragged myself out.”

Charlie felt the weight of hundreds of stories going untold, all the hard moments of Ian’s young life that were packed in between the few words that Ian was letting out. The weight of them took his breath away, for a moment.

“No.”

“What?” Charlie was confused. “No what?”

“I didn’t take the car and leave. I could have, I think I could have caught up with Hoyle. But I didn’t. And another guy died. That’s on me. But Reeves – if I had left and she died, that would have been on me, too.”

Charlie was silent, considering what to say. “This is not exactly the same,” he said. “But I know what it’s like to be driven, and to let that drive push you to make decisions that, under other circumstances, you wouldn’t make. You’re a better man than I am.”

Ian’s head jerked up, and he stared into Charlie’s eyes. “Bullshit.”

“You just said you wouldn’t – you didn’t – leave someone to die. But I did.”

“Charlie…”

Fixing his gaze on the ceiling once again, Charlie continued. “Don didn’t come back to L.A. because he wanted to. Definitely not for me, or for Dad. He came home because my mom got sick. I was new at CalSci, finished with my grad work and just starting out as a teacher.” Charlie huffed a laugh. “I had no fucking clue, I was younger than or the same age as all of my students. Anyway, Mom had cancer, she’d had it for years. She went into remission twice. But not the third time.” Charlie swallowed hard. “She spent the last three months of her life at home. And I spent that time in the garage, working through P vs. NP. It’s unsolvable. I couldn’t stop. It’s not the same thing. But I let her die all the same, without me.”

There was silence, and Charlie blinked away some of the tears that had filled his eyes while he talked. Then he felt Ian’s arm get a firmer grip around his waist and squeeze. Eventually Ian’s breathing grew regular, deep and even, but Charlie didn’t stop petting. The feeling of Ian’s hair in his fingers was soothing, and he didn’t want to wake him.


	6. Chapter 6

Ian regretted waking up, but not as much as he regretted drinking almost an entire bottle of whiskey the night before. The only reason he’d picked up the Jack was because he knew it would get him drunk quickly. It had been a while since he’d had a hangover. Some vague thought poked at his brain, and he felt around the bed. He knew he hadn’t fallen asleep alone.

But there was no one there. Except for himself, the bed was empty. He rolled over to check the time on the alarm clock and nearly knocked over a bottle of water. There was a page of hotel stationary underneath it, and Ian patiently blinked his eyes until the words came into focus.

_Drink this. Getting breakfast. – C_

Ian frowned, but uncapped the bottle of water. He swished the first mouthful around the inside of his mouth before swallowing, grimacing at the awful taste the whiskey had left behind. _Oh god._ Ian squeezed his eyes shut. _I kissed Charlie with that mouth._

A scrabbling noise at the door had Ian reaching under the bed for his rifle before he realized that it must be Charlie. The mathematician pushed the door open, holding it with his foot while struggling to take the key out of the lock. He was holding two Styrofoam containers in one hand and held a small paper bag in his mouth. A paper cup with a lid was tucked under one arm.

Seeing Ian awake, Charlie spat out the bag, letting it drop to the floor and allowing the door to swing closed behind him. “Hey, I got some stuff from the diner next door. I figured you’d be okay with the basics.” 

Charlie placed one of the containers down in front of Ian and then set the cup on the nightstand. “Coffee,” he explained. “But you should drink the water first. Here.” The mathematician bent down to retrieve the small paper bag and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. “Just in case.”

Ian grunted. He looked down at the container in his lap and flipped open the lid. It contained scrambled eggs, hash browns, and three strips of thick bacon. He looked over at Charlie’s container. It held the same.

“I thought you were Jewish,” Ian grumbled, unwrapping the plastic fork that was resting on top of the hash browns.

“You just want my bacon, I see how it is. Well, too bad – I’m not religious.” As if to demonstrate, Charlie ate half of one strip of bacon in one bite. 

The two of them ate in silence. Charlie finished first. He hadn’t slept much, just dozed a little, and he’d had plenty of time to consider how hungry he was before he deemed it an acceptable hour to leave Ian in bed in search of food.

Ian dutifully finished off the bottle of water before taking a sip of the coffee. He usually took his black with sugar, while this was a little too sweet and milky for his taste. But coffee was coffee, and this was only his first cup of the day. He cleared his throat. “So.”

Charlie looked up from playing with his fork, stabbing little lines of holes in the Styrofoam. “So?”

“I have your number now.”

Charlie nodded. “You do.”

“Maybe I could call you, the next time I’m in town.”

“Maybe.” Charlie looked down again, thinking of Amita. Ian had been on the hunt earlier, in the office. And he’d been drunk last night. But if he hadn’t been… Charlie knew how things would have gone, otherwise. And he felt both energized and terrible about it.

“I still need to take you shooting,” Ian said, experimentally.

“Yeah,” Charlie grinned. “You said you would.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.” Charlie straightened, picking up his container and depositing it in the wastebasket. “I’d better get going, I’ve got to get home to change clothes before class.”

Ian nodded. He was heading back to Quantico later that day and needed some time to feel human again, though the coffee was helping. “See you around, Professor.”

Charlie started to open the door.

“Hang on,” Ian called, remembering something.

“What?” Charlie looked at him inquiringly.

“You said you came here last night because you needed to know something.”

“That’s right, I did.”

“Well?” Ian shifted, trying to ease an ache in his neck. He was pretty sure he’d used Charlie as a pillow last night.

“Don’t worry about it, you answered my question.” Charlie grinned, and closed the door behind him.


End file.
